Interview with Jessica Laeseke

LEH: All right. Hey, do you have any other questions before we get started?

JL: Nope, I don't think so.

LEH: All right. So I'm going to turn the recorder on. All right. My name is Lena Evers-Hillstrom. Today is April 20, 2020. I'm here with Jessica Laeseke (pronounces name "Lasky").

JL: Laeseke. (pronounces Lasicky) Yes, very close.

LEH: For the UW System Restructuring Project, Oral History Project. Jessica, can you say your last name and then spell it out?

JL: Laeseke. L-a-e-s-e-k-e.

LEH: All right. Mic levels look good. Okay. So why don't we just get started with some of the like basics of how you got started with the UW Colleges and how long did you hold your position before restructuring started?

JL: Sure. So I actually started with the UW Colleges as a student back in 2007. I was a student at the UW Richland campus from 2007-2009. And after my 2009 year at Richland, I talked with the Continuing Education Department about some job openings that they had for the summer. A lot of what they did was youth programming throughout the summer and I was looking for an extra job. So I started working their youth programs in the summer of 2009. Shortly after I started working those programs, I went back to, went to go to UW Platteville in the fall. And I decided I wanted to switch to online schooling. So then I actually started working part time in the office in 2010. I was just kind of an office assistant part time. We had a director who was there that had hired me and she had left. And then a new director came in. He was only there for about eleven months. So then I started as a project assistant running the continuing education office in September of 2011. And I was in the project assistant role for about a year and a half. I was finishing my degree at the time and they were hiring for a continuing education director. So I didn't, I couldn't be the continuing education director in 2011. But I was basically doing the role that the continuing education director would have been doing starting in September of 2011.

So in February of 2013, I became the continuing education director for UW 00:03:00Richland for the UW Colleges. And then that lasted a couple of years and we went through some different times with budget cuts. So we ended up regionalizing, which was a very interesting time in the Colleges. Very difficult time in the Colleges prior to restructuring. We all went through, starting in 2015, of having to basically reimagine what our offices would look like. Because as a continuing education director and in a lot of the other positions, there was thirteen of us. There were thirteen UW colleges, there were thirteen positions that were similar to what I did at UW Richland spread across the colleges.

And when we regionalized, we went from thirteen people in those positions to four people in those positions. So I applied for the regional position and got that position. I would say in June of 2015 we had to start planning for what regionalization would look like, and I was on one of those committees. I had to apply for the regional job against colleagues that I had worked with, had grown really close with. So I had to apply against them in that fall of 2015. And basically we found out I think December seventeenth if we had a job starting January first with the regionalization.

So again, it was a very interesting time in the Colleges. So when we regionalized, I went from having just UW Richland then working with UW Richland, UW Baraboo Sauk County, and UW Rock County in June. And then that lasted another couple of years before we restructured. And even in the restructuring process, we were trying to help define what restructuring would look like. And the comprehensives, or the receiving institutions that were coming in, obviously had their own thoughts on how things would work as well, and their own plans.

So once we were restructuring, I stayed on for a little bit and finished out our summer programs. But then I left the campus in two thousand eight, fall of thousand eight, nineteen, 2019, I think. No. Yes. Eighteen, 2018. Sorry.

LEH: All right. Yeah. Regionalization has definitely come up before as sort of like a piece in this. I was wondering, do you want to expand at all on sort of like the process of regionalizing? I know you said it was kind of difficult.

JL: Yeah. Yeah. So regionalization was extremely difficult. It was difficult for 00:06:00anybody. So we had a central office in the UW Colleges. And there was always I think what seemed like to be a disconnect between our central office and Madison and our campuses. Whether there should have been or not, it always seemed that there was a disconnect. Because you'd have people on campuses who actually worked with the students day in and day out, saw the struggles that were going on, had classes to run, had things like that going on. And then you had our folks in the central office who were trying to plan for better things, or make sure that we were up on the latest pieces of curriculum and academics and technology that we should be. You know, all of that kind of stuff. But then it just always seemed like there was this lack of understanding of well, they don't really understand what it's like on the campuses. They don't really understand what it's like on the campuses.

So, when regionalization was announced, that this would be happening, it basically tore hearts, I would say, out of people on the campuses. Because the campuses, they were the life blood of the Colleges. And students that went to the UW Colleges didn't know they went to the UW Colleges most of the time. Students that were at UW Richland knew that they were at UW Richland. They didn't realize, really, that it was part of twelve other campuses that were part of UW Colleges. So it was very much a localized thing. And the marketing was always localized. And the advertising was always localized. I mean, it was also done on a larger forefront as well for the UW Colleges.

But again, you could go to any one of those campuses and they'd be like, "Yeah, I'm a student at Barron County. I'm a student at Richland."

"Oh, yeah. You're part of the UW Colleges."

"What's the UW Colleges?"

And so that's kind of where that disconnect was, as well as just not realizing that it was part of the whole. Because that's not how it came across in advertising. You wanted your local campus to be out there and to be aware.

So I was part of UW Richland and I was an alum of UW Richland. Well there was also about eight or nine other staff members that had gone to UW Richland or had been a part of UW Richland. So you kind of lived and breathed your campus, and you poured it all into your campus.

So when regionalization came on, it was all of a sudden going to be that you were going to have to work for these other campuses, or that things were not going to be as localized as they were before. You had to cut staff, right? We went from thirteen people in some positions down to four. And then there were other staff cuts where we had more regionalized marketing, regionalized student services, regionalized business services, regionalized continuing education. I mean, so many of those things, people felt like, were going off the campus. And in the regional structure, everybody, of course, was just afraid that their campus wouldn't be at the forefront of whoever's mind that was who was doing that position. And rightfully so. I get that. So there was a lot of 00:09:00uncertainty. There was a lot of people that were scared about what was going to happen and just felt like that local control that they had before was being taken away. Or that that local identity was going to be taken away, because things were going to be on a regional forefront.

Also with regionalization, you, then, whoever was regional in their title, became basically like a central employee, and not an employee of just UW Richland, or UW Baraboo Sauk County, or UW Rock County. So then quite honestly because so many people at first were so opposed to regionalization within the campuses, it didn't matter what campus you were on before, what you were trying to do. You were automatically disliked, because you had "regional" in your title.

So starting in January, you know, we went to the campuses to try to learn about the different campuses. We had our own campus that we came from that we were very much aware of, right? But even though we were all part of the UW Colleges, each campus was very unique in their structure, in different things that they did. We had some of the same general processes. But how you got there and the different pieces that went into it and your programs were different. And that's what everybody wanted to make sure that was still maintained, is that difference that they had between the campuses. Because if you're not different, then why would students come to you? They could go to any campus, because you're all the same. So what's the difference?

So going in, I had worked with someone for several years. And I applied against her, basically, for the regional position. And so that was difficult. So you were going and applying against job with people that you grew to work with, that you grew to like. That you grew to become friends with. So after that, obviously, there was tensions as well. And then you would, you know, going to the campus where another person was in the position that obviously was well-liked by their colleagues. Whether they applied for the position or not, you weren't that person. And so it was difficult for people to see you in the new role, because you weren't the person that was previously there. And some of those people were there for twenty years. Some of those, you know, ten, fifteen, anywhere in those numbers. And so it was difficult all around to come in and say, okay, like this is what has to happen, now I am the person. So there was a lot of backhanded comments that occurred through the whole process. And there was a lot of trust that had to be gain.

So I know different people struggled with it in different ways. And I will say that I grew a much thicker skin in those two and a half years that we were in regionalization. But the biggest thing is, I had to realize that it wasn't me. It wasn't directed at me. It was the whole situation. And I was just one of the people that kind of represented the situation. That's why I was 00:12:00receiving a lot of the dislike at first, I guess we'll say that you receive.

And then eventually campuses started coming around after you, again, gained their trust a little bit. You gain the community trust. You gain the trust of the people on the campuses realizing oh, they are showing up, they do care. Those types of things. So then it did get easier. And I would say shortly before we announced the restructuring project, we were kind of in our groove and we were really doing our thing. And everybody, I think, was in a really decent place at that time. Some people still obviously disliked the regionalization and they were going to fight it to their grave, regardless. It didn't matter what was going to happen. But I felt like we were finally in a really good place.

And then I was on my way to Janesville that day to work and I found out about restructuring. So it was just like another big, I would say like explosion within the UW Colleges of okay, now what's going to happen?

LEH: Yeah. Yeah. I guess going into that, how did you find out about the plans to restructure?

JL: (laughs) How did I find out about the plans to restructure? Because we were regionalized, basically anytime that you went to another campus, you had meetings all day, or you had face to face things that you had to do the whole day. So you knew that you weren't going to catch up on your email or anything like that. And they were still not slowing down, right? Your email never slows down.

So I installed an app on my phone that read me my emails. So that while I was driving, because Janesville from my house was two hours and fifteen minutes from my house. So that was a lot of downtime. That was four and a half hours in the vehicle anytime I had to go to Janesville that I could at least like go through some email. Delete them, they're read to me, get rid of them, whatever. And so my app was on. And I was about a half hour into my drive when the email read to me that we were restructuring and there was going to be a teleconference that day to discuss it further. So I turned around and went back to my campus. The main campus that I had worked with that's closest to my house. And then just sat in on the town halls.

I mean, there was so much uncertainty about what was going to happen at first, about who was going to stay. It was very nice that we were given a guarantee at that point. Not quite at that point, but shortly after, that said if you can kind of ride it out with us for a little bit, help figure out how this restructuring is going to work, we'll guarantee your position for up to two years at the current salary. Making sure that you stay busy doing things. So that way they didn't have everybody leaving that knew what was going on. Because that could also have been a complete disaster.

LEH: Yeah. I'm curious, what was that town hall like?

JL: I mean, so--(laughs) The first one, I mean, there was just a lot of uncertainty. It was more of just information being given to us. Like this is kind of what's happening. This is the new plan. That's kind of what it was. There was so much uncertainty, I would say, for the first couple of months. There wasn't a lot of details. It just was this is what's going to happen, but a lot of the details weren't out yet. And they were trying to have the comprehensives or the receiving institutions kind of help to figure out some of those details and how things were going to work. But I would say as kind of things progressed and you found more information out, you definitely had people who were concerned, who were worried. I mean again, you're going to go from the people, not just regional folks, but people on campuses saying, "Are we going to be okay? Are we not going to be okay?" But especially the regional people saying, "Yeah, I'm not sure I'm going to have a job after this." Because, you know, you worked for three different campuses and you're going to have a receiving institution coming in. And they're not going to want you working for three different campuses. They're not going to want you working for two different campuses. Unless two of those campuses are part of their receiving institution.

And then you had the, so you had the worry, from some. And then you also had the like yes, this is the best thing ever, from some people as well. Because those were also the folks who were very against regionalization. So in particular with Richland. Richland originally, a very long time ago, when they started, was part of UW Platteville. So they were like yes, we're going back to our roots. That's fine. We still weren't, I mean, we were kind of getting used to regionalization, but still not happy about it. So for them, they felt like this was going to be a saving grace. Because they were going to go back to UW Platteville. Everything was going to be great. Regionalization was going to be gone. Halleluiah.

LEH: Hmm. That's so interesting, too, because like, it sort of goes to the point of sort of like local identity and just how different that can be between campuses.

JL: Absolutely. And what's interesting and kind of humorous about it all as well, is some campuses, again, that were so opposed to the regionalization, it was like well, you're going to a receiving institution, but you're still going to be in a regional model. You're going to have a main campus. And then you're going to have your campus. And then possibly another campus, depending on what it is. And you're going to have people working on behalf of all, you know, in Richland and Baraboo's case and Platteville, all three of those campuses. So that's still a regional model. But it didn't matter, because that's now how some folks saw it. Because, again, "regionalization" was like a curse word when it happened in the UW Colleges. So anything that isn't that was better.

LEH: Why, why was regionalization so, I mean, I'm just wondering like I don't, yeah.

JL: Why were people so against it?

LEH: Yeah. I mean like, I guess you sort of talked about it. But, yeah. I guess, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

JL: There were a lot of fears. And some of them were rational and some of them were very irrational. It just, it was different. And some people in general just don't like change, and it doesn't matter what the change is going to be, it's just not going to be what they want. But a lot of it is you, and each of the campuses--so imagine this. You have a campus. You've worked with people on that campus for years. Maybe some people you've even only worked with a year, two years, whatever. Regardless, in that amount of time and in a small campus, you get to know those people. You get to appreciate and respect all of those people.

So then you're going to be regionalized. And again, you went from thirteen people down to four. So you look around at each of those campuses and you know that you're not going to be working with the same people that you were working with. It's going to be a different environment. You're going to have people coming in from different campuses that have different ideas and have different thoughts. Good, bad or otherwise, it doesn't matter. It's just, it's different. So you have people who are applying for jobs that you grew to respect and love. Like you have a dean from UW Richland that people are very respected of, who spoke out against different things that they didn't like and appreciate. And now, in regionalization, you have a dean coming in from a campus up north that you never really met, never really gotten to know. And so you're just kind of like starting over. And you weren't involved in the interview process at all. So that's kind of how campuses felt. It's like you--you as in our like central office, I mean, there was an interview committee, there was an interview process. But not necessarily people on those campuses were represented during that interview process. So it was kind of like the people were chosen for them with, you know what I'm saying? Without them having a say in it. So that part was difficult in general as well, of having these different people coming in. And you didn't meet them. You didn't see their resume. You didn't have the interview with them. You didn't know that. You just had to trust that they were the people that were best selected for the job.

So you start with the deans, and basically the dean's interview committee was the chancellor and some other folks in the central office. While campuses, we already know how they felt about the central office at times, and weren't always thrilled with their decision making. So you have the central office choosing the dean. And then after the dean, the dean is on the committee with other folks in the central office, some community members and at least one representative sometimes from the campuses, but not all the campuses, right?

So like my interview committee was a representative, a professor from the Marshfield campus, and then some folks from our central office, and 00:21:00then another person who was selected in a regional position. So in my region, and in most of the other regions, there was no one that had a voice in that process at all. So the dean ultimately then helped to kind of finalize, he was in on the interviews or received feedback from the interviews. He or she. And then they were the ones who selected the finals, or who was eventually going to have that position.

So the dean who came from Manitowoc down to the southwest region for Richland, Baraboo and Janesville is ultimately the one who chose for me to have the regional position as the continuing education person. And again, Richland people knew me. But people from Baraboo didn't know me. People from Janesville didn't know me. And even Richland, because now I had the "regional" in my title, and people were so upset about regionalization and having that local identity potentially stripped, having staffing cuts, losing people they grew to respect, all of those different things. And then also being fearful of well why would our regional folks put their marketing and efforts into keeping Richland open when they've got Baraboo and Janesville, who are much larger. That's where their efforts are going to go. So there was that scaredness as well of people thinking, are we going to have a campus soon? Are they going to care to keep us open? Why would they put their efforts into this campus? So there are a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions. And then you add to it the fact that people just aren't good with change in general. And all of it's scary. So you had to keep the respect, or increase the respect of the people that you had worked with previously. But then also gain the respect of the people who didn't know you, didn't have any part in choosing you in the position, while also trying to move things along.

But then people were also, I don't know what I want to say. They had curtains on or shutters on, the previous people that were in positions, too, right? So you got used to how that information was presented, how that information came across to you from a person, say, in a dean's role, or in a business manager's role, or in student affairs' role. And then you have people who present it differently. And so there's this whole new like learning process with all of this that was going on, too. And then regional folks were trying to learn as we're going on, too. Because you're trying to get to know other campuses, but you're also trying to keep up with what you have to do. So our jobs were multiplied by three, basically. Because you had your one job before and now you've got two more that you add to it. And in the north region, they had three, four campuses total in the north region. So it was all, it's all interesting.

LEH: Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine. What did that look like from a continuing education perspective?

JL: Yeah. Yeah. So from continuing education, it was helpful that, 00:24:00and you wouldn't think this because I worked with Richland, it was the smallest campus. But it actually had the most youth programs and non-credit programs for adults, I would say, than the other campuses, even though it was the smallest. Especially with the youth outreach that we did. And we had some international students coming in and things like that. But what I did was I just tried to, you tried to not necessarily mirror what was going on, but try to get to know the community a little bit and figure out what will work in this community? Will similar things work? And then find new instructors that you can have as well. But you're also trying to get to know the business community and the community as a whole.

And so one thing that we did, not the very first, because we started in January and you already start programs at the end of January, but starting that following summer and fall is we did a regional catalog, which was really nice. Because Baraboo and Richland are only an hour away. And so we did a regional catalog that had courses and information for continuing education for Janesville, Baraboo and Richland. All three campuses were in one catalog. So we were able to kind of put our marketing dollars in a little better. Expand our reach. So we reached out to people maybe we hadn't reached out to before. So our new customer base increased. And then we were able to get new instructors and things like that. But it was also just trying to think of things in that regional way, you know, especially for Baraboo and Richland is who can I share instructors with? Can this instructor go to this campus because it's not so far away? Can I do something in the middle? So I would do some different classes in Plain, because it was in the middle of Baraboo and Richland. So it was just trying to think of different ways to expand and different ways to offer things to the community and not necessarily people that were just in the communities we served previously, but expand beyond those communities a little bit now, since we were in a regional framework. So that way we could spread the campus information out there a little bit better than we have before.

LEH: Mm hmm. So how would you market to people in that regional model?

JL: So again, we did a regional catalog. We did a regional catalog a couple of times a year. We did some newspaper inserts and things like that. So what I try to be conscious of is try to keep some of that marketing that had been done previously. And at Richland, I always knew what the marketing was because I had been doing it for several years. But Baraboo, every campus always sent out to their previous customers. They'd always sent out information to people who had taken classes previously. But sometimes that's kind of where it ended. Because continuing education is different than the other departments as well, that we were a completely cost-recovered program. So if you didn't make your money and be able to pay for all your staff, all your supplies, everything, you know, all of your expenses, then you had to, sometimes people had to lay 00:27:00themselves off or had to do other things like that. So we were not supposed to rely on the campuses or anybody for money. And then if we made money in the continuing education office, that went back to the campuses outside of our department. So we were different.

And so what it did in the regional model is it allowed us to leverage the money of the three campuses together a little bit for that marketing. So instead of Richland just putting in a thousand dollars for marketing, and Baraboo doing it there and Janesville doing it there with whatever they had previously spent, we were able to put all that together and to be able to reach further than we had before.

We also were trying to invest when we first started into increasing the client base. Because colleges, and obviously, we mean, that doesn't exist anymore, were unfortunately one of the better-kept secrets as well is that if you knew about them, you knew about them. But a lot of people still didn't know about them. I didn't even know that UW Richland was a campus until I was in high school. And I only lived fifteen minutes away from Richland Center and was in Richland Center all the time.

LEH: What?! (laughs)

JL: But it's because I was at the other end of town. So you didn't--it wasn't always out there in front of you if you're not paying attention to it. So, it was like that for other campuses, too, as they were unfortunately some of the best-kept secrets. And if you went there, you fell in love and it was amazing. But some people really still didn't know about it.

And same thing in the continuing education world. Well, what is that? What do you do? What happens at that campus? I've never been there? Or people thinking, you know, I didn't graduate high school, I can't go to that campus. Well, yes you can. We're not snooty palooties or anything like that. You can go to any of the campuses. And so then I tried to also market, you can always use our library. You can come to use our computers. Trying to get people to just be more comfortable in the campuses in general.

So again with the regional marketing, we put everything together. And then we also still kept some things localized, or expanded on what was done localized. So with Baraboo, putting more inserts into their papers that went out in circulation, which was pretty cost-effective. Because they printed the inserts for you, they inserted them for you. And so it was very cost-effective to get out to reach a large amount of people. And then we could get more people coming into these programs to hear about it. So it was just trying to think creatively about how do I take this money that we have and expand upon it, but then also make sure that I'm covering all of these costs? Because we have to be cost recovering.

LEH: Yeah. Is part of that like thinking about, maybe like the demographics that take continuing education classes?

JL: Yes. Yep. And so then I would even use, so yeah, thinking about the demographics and then even using like Facebook posts, boosting Facebook posts, expanding that reach. Because you can select a certain age group, a certain interest, you know, people's hobbies and things like that. And then 00:30:00you could go ahead and you could market to those people individually. And so we saw people increasing that way, too. But then you also had to be conscious of the fact that a lot of our audience, a lot of our customers are mid-fifties, or late forties to seventies. (laughs) So a lot of those folks are not necessarily, they weren't necessarily using Facebook and things like that. So you still had to keep some of the other ones. So it was trying to just be, not throw the spaghetti at the ceiling, I guess I would say when the marketing and stuff came about. Is trying to be cognizant of what is really going to get me to my target audience? How do I expand upon this?

And then we had different, we did different things at the campuses, too. Like free lectures for the community, just to bring people in and make people more aware of what we did. And that was a form of advertising. And then we did some different career development programs for kids and things like that. And then we could advertise our summer programs, or at least have them on campus so they knew that UW Richland or UW Baraboo Sauk County or UW Rock County was a thing before they got to high school. (laughter)

LEH: Oh, yeah. That's kind of smart. I never would have thought about it that way. That's kind of--huh.

JL: Yeah. So we, I mean, we were cost recovery, but then we also tried to do things for the campus as a whole just to increase that base. Granted, having kids come earlier and having them think oh, okay, I was at that campus. And have them walk away with some cool things that were relatively cheap to produce or whatever was nice. But then it also just exposed us so that we could send home what we did for summer programs for youth and things like that, too, so that they were more aware of everything on the campus that was available. Because our campuses served kids starting in kindergarten. You know, if they wanted to, programs were available on some campuses from kindergarten. For sure, most campuses by fourth grade through high school. Because we did ACT prep and everything, too. And then you could come into college. So we did things for all different age groups. It was just making sure people, again, were aware.

LEH: Yeah. Did you find at all that there were different or kind of similar, I don't know, like levels of engagement between those three communities?

JL: I would say that Baraboo had the best level of engagement from a campus. But in particular within the southwest region, Baraboo had the most support from their county and their city government. So they were shared, because it's Baraboo-Sauk County. So the city of Baraboo and the county of Sauk both had things to do with the campus. So they have different people that run those boards or things like that. And then different funding came from the city and from the government, or from the county. And you could tell that they really cared and they were investing in the different things for that campus.

Richland County, I mean, we struggle financially sometimes. So it wasn't necessarily that the county board didn't care, didn't want to put money in. It was that the funds were so stretched between everything else that there wasn't a ton of reinvesting in the campus. And you can tell that it looks like it did when it was in 1950.

And then Janesville, I think, it's so large in Rock County. And you have the Black Hawk Tech and the technical colleges, and the technical colleges, you know, they tax taxpayers directly. And you can tell. We have a marketing dollar, at Richland we had marketing dollars of ten thousand dollars or something like that on the campuses. And our central office had some funds as well that they did on behalf of all thirteen campuses. But you compare that with several hundred thousand up to a million dollars for a technical school, and there's no way we can compete. And then when you start adding in that technical colleges can start offering associate degree programs and direct transfer, which is what our mission in the UW Colleges is supposed to be, you get drowned out. So you know, in Janesville, you're a couple of miles from Black Hawk Technical College. That's outshining all the time. So it's just hard.

And it's not necessarily where they were built always in visible locations. Janesville Rock County wasn't off the main road or anything like that. It was kind of in the little communities area. A lot of houses around it. Nothing, you know, you had to go down, I don't know, nine, ten blocks to reach the main road, stuff like that. So all of that was kind of tricky. And making sure that people were more visible, campuses were more visible and represented. But I would say you could definitely tell the most cared upkeep was at Baraboo-Sauk County.

LEH: Hmm. So, sort of going into regionalize, sorry, not regionalization, restructuring, what were you hearing from people in these communities? What were the reactions of people that you worked with, that were working with the county?

JL: So again, I think there was some hesitation. But I think in general, it was optimism. Because regionalization, again, was hard. And it was so strongly opposed when it first came out. And we weren't in regionalization that long. Like I said, it was about two and a half years in that we got the news that, not even quite two and a half years, that we got the news that we were going to restructure. So people were getting used to regionalization, but they were still okay with switching at that point. You know, it hadn't been five years. It hadn't been ten years or anything like that. I think the longer that 00:36:00regionalization had gone on, the better that it would have happened. I mean, things would have, people would have started coming around more. Again, we were kind of getting in our groove of things and stuff like that. So just when restructuring happened, it was far enough into regionalization that it wasn't too far, so that there was still a time when people were happy and okay to switch, and make a switch to do something else.

But again, I think overall, it was the same kind of concern that people had in wanting to make sure that the campus identity was maintained, the community identity was maintained, the services were maintained. But the hope was that staffing would increase at those campuses in restructuring, because regionalization, staffing was cut. So they were hoping that staffing would increase amongst all the locations.

But UW Colleges, we had always been super-efficient in everything we did. I mean, you took a person like me in the continuing education office. And what I did, there were four or five people that did that same thing at the comprehensive level. Because we had to be one person doing that. It doesn't mean that our volume of what we did was the same. I couldn't do as much as one person that five people could do at another campus. But I had to know enough about all those five areas to be able to represent them in the UW Colleges. Versus kind of everybody being more siloed, I would say, at the comprehensive campuses.

So I think people in general were okay with the switch. Excited about some possibilities that they maybe didn't like about the regional model and what that might bring. But there was obviously some hesitation as well. And I think the people maybe who were most concerned were folks in the central and the regional positions. Because we didn't know if there was going to be a need for us. We knew there was going to be a need for us in the process of figuring out how restructuring was going to work, or to at least explain how we had done things in the Colleges, and then make, you know, the receiving institutions could figure out what they needed to figure out for themselves after learning kind of the background and stuff on it. But you could also definitely tell in certain situations, not all situations, that it was like a you know, well, you guys in the Colleges, you struggle financially, or you struggle this way. Why would we do things the same way? Which makes sense, right? If we were having some troubles, why would we continued in that same direction? So I think some things were heard. And when we went into the restructuring that the comprehensives wanted to hear. But I would say all of the comprehensives definitely had their own agenda and their own plan, and wanted to protect their own staffing. So that was also a concern that professors had as well as both if you were at the campus that was going to be receiving campus, and if you were at the branch campus, it was are we still going to have positions in general, I think was the concern on anybody's mind. You know, you already have an English department at 00:39:00Platteville. Do you need an English department at Richland? Or do you need those same staffing positions? And so it was kind of all over. And I would say that professors were more affected when we went to restructuring and wondering about their jobs, whether they were non-academic instructional staff or whether they were faculty. They were more concerned in switching to a restructuring model versus the regional model, because in the regional model, they really weren't affected. I will say, they weren't affected by positions. They were affected by the overall change.

LEH: Yeah. Did you see that at all with like continuing ed instructors specifically?

JL: No. Because again, I mean, our continuing education instructors are very different than the comprehensive campuses and everything, too. Between three campuses, we had about 225, they were called independent contractors, basically, who would come in and teach courses for continuing education. Our base just kept growing. Again, if we could cover our costs, that was the main thing. And if we could continue to do that, then we could continue to grow. So our instructors were not affected. In fact, some of them increased what they had before, because they were willing to go to other campuses and try different things.

LEH: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. All right. So I guess now we're sort of at the phases of restructuring. I know you work as a project person now, right?

JL: Well, yeah. So, during the whole process, so basically we found out, like I said, I think it was the fall 2017, yeah, that we found out. So we were a year and a half into restructuring, not two and a half years, sorry. You know, you had a lot of meetings. You had a lot of meetings at the campuses figuring out how this would work. Explaining what you did. What is this program, what is that program, where does the funding come from, how does this work, all of that kind of stuff was kind of what happened for about six months or so. And I was offered a position from Platteville to stay on. A lot of people were offered different positions to stay on if they wanted to. And I couldn't accept the position to stay on for continuing education because it was a vast decrease in my salary doing kind of the same thing I was doing for Baraboo and for Richland. But financially, we couldn't make that switch in the couple of months that it would have taken to completely change how that would work in our household. So I wasn't able to stay on for Platteville, but they did ask me to stay on for 00:42:00the summer programs to help move things out out. So there wasn't really any animosity or anything like that in the whole thing. It was just financially I can't do it, I'm sorry. And we still had our guarantee with the Colleges for another about a year and a half or so. So I had to take that chance and make my finances work with whatever was going to happen that way, versus what was going to happen in those couple of months that Platteville was offering me, the change that they had to make.

So when I was, I worked out the summer programs, kind of talked to them about all of that. I stayed on for a little bit until they hired another person, which was in October of that year. And then I started working part time for the project management office for UW System. So that was my reassignment for my next year while I finished working on the contract that we had basically with the UW Colleges. So I was then the project manager. I was working on different things with the restructuring project.

And then Colleen Godfriaux, who was our head of admin and finance for UW Colleges, she found out that I was in the project management office and asked if I could help in the closeout for UW Colleges admin and finance unit. Which is very bittersweet. Working in the project management office when I first started, it was only about a month before Colleen found out I was there. It was still bittersweet, but you weren't as directly involved. Because you were kind of helping other campuses, providing input and working on different projects. But then when you really get down digging into closing out a specific unit of the UW Colleges, it's definitely bittersweet. Because you're trying to move it all along, but you're trying to not, you know--it's hard, because you worked there and you were part of that institution for so long. So it was difficult. But it worked out well. And I worked with different groups within UW System across regional, you know, receiving institutions. I worked with the UW System office and things like that. And then did that for about a year.

And then I applied to be the budget accountant for UW Systems. So that's actually my current role is I'm UW System's budget accountant, working in the admin and finance office of UW System.

LEH: So for admin and finance, you were shutting down the finances (of the UW Colleges)?

JL: Yeah, I was the project manager for admin and finance. So it kind of spread across different areas. It was auxiliary services. So making sure like what's going to happen with textbook rental? What's going to happen with food service contracts? What's going to happen with those areas? And there was another group that was largely following up on that, too, so we didn't have as much 00:45:00involvement. But it was kind of everything that could touch admin and finance in some way, shape or form. And then we had the bursar's office. So there were different things that were involved in admin and finance under the bursar's office. So I worked with the bursar to make sure who's going to do the 1098-Ts? And who's going to do this? I mean, there was different task lists. And there was 135 different closeout tasks for admin and finance that touched these various areas. It was working with procurement to make sure that certain contracts were moved or certain contracts were shut down or you know, what's going to happen with this contract? Is the campus continuing these, are they not continuing these? So it was sitting in on those meetings and things like that, too, to work through what was happening and really just kind of being the point person for anything that's involved with admin and finance.

And what was really smart about it is, there were conversations that would occur with the procurement group that were also occurring with the bursar's group, or occurring with the controller's group. So I could be that person that kind of brought everything full circle for people and said hey, this group is also talking about it. They don't really want this to continue. And kind of loop everybody in on what was going on. Versus having, because what we had in the project management office is everyone was assigned to different groups. So you had someone that sat in on the bursar's group. You had someone that sat in on the controller's group, and these different areas. But they didn't necessarily talk amongst each other. So even if we had someone already in the project management office who was part of these work groups and these closeout groups, I also joined them because they touched admin and finance. And I could bring everything full circle for that group, too. So that the communication, I think, was better in closing those out.

And then with the controllers, that was where most of the tasks resided. And that was a lot of, even thinking about how do we access our programs, like WSDM and WISER to be able to see our finances from previous years within UW Colleges. And how are we going to look at them going forward? And who's going to collect the mail once UW Colleges is no longer there? So it was a multitude of different tasks, from that to how are these costs going to get redistributed to the regional campuses that we kind of collectively held at the central office? How's that going to get re-dispersed so everybody isn't feeling like they're having to pay more or pay less and things like that.

LEH: Hmm. The mail?

JL: Yeah. Even sorting like the mail. Like who's going to collect it? 'Cause the Colleges, you don't have any employees coming in but it's still coming to the UW Colleges, who's going to collect it?

LEH: Oh, man.

JL: I mean, it was stuff like that minute to, like I said, much larger things, and everything kind of in between. Because yeah, I mean, we still have a couple of people who are finishing out their contracts with the UW Colleges. We have a couple of people who end in June and a couple of people who end this November. So I think we have three or four people left, and that's it. But if they're not there, and you still have mail coming in, because people are still sending checks to UW Colleges, or they're still sending things, you know, we have a bunch of, there were checks out there that we had sent refunds to 00:48:00students and students hadn't cashed them. So by law, you still have five years that they can cash those checks. So you have to keep reissuing them if they need them, or you have to do a write-off under that policy as well. I mean, so there was a lot of different things that you wouldn't think about that were happening.

LEH: Yeah. Oh, man. That sounds like a lot, a lot of stuff to think about. (laughs)

JL: It is a lot of stuff to think about. (laughs)

LEH: Does anything like from that process strike you as sort of like the thing that you were dealing with the most? Or that people had like the most discussion about?

JL: It's kind of humorous in a way, but it goes back to, and I had to explain this to the project management office a little bit, too, is you know in the Colleges, again, everybody kind of had that local identity, the uniqueness and everything about them. But some of our processes were the same. Same thing with the receiving institutions. The comprehensives feel the exact same way that we did in the Colleges. We have some of this, or this is only a Platteville thing, or this is only a Stevens Point thing, or this is only, you know what I mean? Like that kind of stuff still occurred as well. So some things that I had to say is that in the Colleges, the difference was, we were very collaborative. Because yes, we were each of those thirteen individual campuses, but we were collectively part of UW Colleges. So we had to pay money into the central office and things like that. But we were kind of helping to support each other as well.

Where the difference in the comprehensives are is that they're not necessarily, well, I mean, they do have to pay some things in or cover with the UW System. But basically, the comprehensives do not want to share. Do not want to share information of any kind, usually. I mean, you have some people who do. But everything is very territorial with the comprehensive campuses, because you're competing against somebody else. Platteville is competing against Whitewater. Even though we're part of the UW System, they're competing for the same students. All of those campuses are competing for the same students. So when you're trying to share information about what could make things easier for campuses, campuses aren't necessarily forthcoming in that. Or how did you do this for students, or how did you do that? It's not necessarily, again, forthcoming information because you don't want to give another campus, or at least that's how it seemed to be. I guess when you'd have your meetings and stuff, you don't want to give that other campus the edge. Because you are in competition with each other.

So something I would explain is we are a UW System. But we are a system, unfortunately, that does not function like a system. We, everybody's kind of thinking they're out for themselves, trying to get the students. And I get it. I mean, everybody's competing to recruit students. And there's less students to recruit. So it's a very difficult thing.

LEH: Yeah. I mean, that kind of puts the Colleges in like a different, or the 00:51:00former Colleges in a different place, too, being part of those four-years. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, let's see. Sorry, I'm just looking.

JL: Oh, it's okay. I gave you a lot of stuff.

LEH: (laughs) Hmm. I guess, were there specific areas where you noticed that things were highly competitive?

JL: Well, I mean, the areas that I worked with, again, were closer related to admin and finance. And the group that I worked the most with was the controller's office. I mean, you didn't see it maybe as much as you saw in other areas. But different project managers would bring up, hey, we're trying to, some campuses it sounds like what to talk about different marketing things as an example, or different ways they're going to do this. But then it seems like people don't want to share that.

And I would say, well, yeah, they don't want to share it, because they're competing with each other. So they don't want to share something that's going to give the other campus the edge and have something taken away from them. You know, that's kind of what started the downfall of the UW Colleges is because again, you had, you think about all the private universities in the state. You have the technical schools, you have UW Colleges and you have the comprehensive campuses. So you have all of those people competing over fewer students, you have more campuses, and now you have people who are doing the same types of things. So you have comprehensives, who are starting to take students who maybe would only go to the UW Colleges before. And you have the technical schools who are offering general education and associate degrees and guaranteed transfer, which is what the UW Colleges did.

So everybody in the state was basically stepping on what everybody else did. And that's why you have some campuses who aren't going to survive.

LEH: Yeah.

JL: And I have one child waking up. He's going to be crying. Do you have any other questions?

LEH: No. No, no. If you have to go--yeah.

JL: If you do think of anything, just tell me. I can jump on for like a quick whatever call or answer any questions through email, too. That's completely fine.

LEH: Oh, no, no, no, no. This was great. I guess before you go, do 00:54:00you have anything else you want to add?

JL: I don't think so. I mean, I can't really give, I mean, I can see it from the perspective that I worked with in the restructuring project. But figuring out how the restructuring is going now for campuses, I can't answer that question. I mean, I can answer it hearsay, what I am hearing from people that I had worked with before. But not firsthand at all in that. So I think there's still fear if some campuses will exist in the future. But that's just going to be fear in general across the nation when you have more universities, online universities, different flexibilities, and you have fewer students in that pot who can attend those. You know, especially in Wisconsin, with graduation rates down. Or, you know, students in schools down. Not necessarily graduation rates.

People don't want to think about higher education as a business. But it really is. And your business is providing an education to students. And at some point, your clientele is going to decrease. And it is decreasing. And campuses like UW Madison and UW Milwaukee, they're probably always going to be just fine. Because they're big and they're attractive to people in-state and out of state, regardless. And so when they don't have to be as picky anymore, maybe, about the students that they take in, you know what I mean? Maybe their ACT score before was 24, now it's 23, you know, stuff like that. They're going to take away from those other campuses that students would normally have gone to that couldn't get into Madison. So the Madisons and the Milwaukees are always going to be fine, because they will always have their numbers. It's the other campuses that you wonder about.

LEH: Yeah. Definitely. All right. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

JL: Sorry about all the canceled--(laughs)

LEH: What?

JL: I said sorry about all the cancels and stuff, then we had all this--

LEH: Oh, no, no, no. Things have been changing so rapidly that it's just like, oh, man, yeah. Yeah.

JL: Yes. Yes. (laughter)

LEH: All right. Well, have a good rest of your day.

JL: Okay. Yes, you, too.

LEH: All right. Bye.

JL: If there's anything, just tell me.

LEH: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Of course. Oh, and I will email you the release form. So you're going to have three options. Your first is open access, and then the other two are different levels of limited access. So you can embargo an interview for a certain number of years, if you want to. The only difference between those two options are that the second one would only limit online access. So if somebody wanted to listen to the interview in person, 00:57:00they could. And the third is both in person and online embargo until a certain date. So, yeah.

JL: Sure. No, I don't think I said anything that's going to incriminate anybody or anything, so I think we're just fine.

LEH: Okay. (laughs) All right. Well, I'll let you get back to your day. All right.

JL: All right. Thank you.

LEH: Thank you. Bye.